Letters to the Editor
Quarantine works against abandonment
I must respond to the misleading Jan. 16 letter from Martin Rice, "Quarantine law repeal would hurt Islands." The writer suggests that crowds of people from the Mainland move here only to turn around and abandon their pets because they've suddenly discovered that the price of paradise is too high.
Nonsense!
I moved to Hawai'i with three pets. I can assure you that it is implausible that anyone who has made their pet endure the quarantine and transportation ordeal would so casually discard that beloved family member. It costs well over $1,000 per animal. The process is tedious and takes four to six months.
Taking an animal away from Hawai'i is much simpler and cheaper.
Feral animals and the damage they do to native fauna are indeed an urgent problem. In Hawai'i, and around the world, the primary source of this problem is irresponsible humans who do not spay or neuter their pets.
Mike Strong
Kane'ohe
Leave quarantine decisions to experts
Is it not bizarre that efforts are actually being made by lay persons to change our rabies quarantine laws?
Animal lovers and legislators are certainly not competent to make decisions that require knowledge of veterinary medicine, pathophysiology and virology. Quarantine decisions in this critically important matter must be left to those whose expertise is established by their training and experience.
Frank L. Tabrah, M.D.
Emeritus professor of Community Health, UH School of Medicine
Assessed values don't make sense
I see that I'm not the only one outraged by the recent sharp increases in property taxes.
Over the last two years, I have seen assessed values increase by as much as 40 percent, leading to property tax increases of as much as 34 percent. This includes a leasehold parcel that actually is declining in market value.
Our property taxes are calculated using two variables. The first is the tax rate, established each year by the City Council. The second variable is the net assessed value, determined by the Real Property Tax Assessment Division. Taxes are calculated by applying the tax rate to the net assessed value.
We know how the tax rate is determined. But what guides the tax assessor in arriving at the assessed value? And what checks and balances operate in that system?
California once used the same system. But in the 1970s, skyrocketing assessed values were taxing fixed-income retirees out of their homes. The citizens of California united behind the famous Proposition 13 to remove the variables and get the system under control. Prop. 13 codified both the tax rate and the method of determining the assessed value. Finally, California citizens knew how much their taxes were going to be from year to year. And purchasers of homes knew what their taxes would be.
Isn't it time to explore a similar system for Hawai'i?
Robert Kessler
Honey Ho a warm, gracious person
I would like to extend my condolences to the Ho family for its great loss.
I lived in Hawai'i in the 1970s and met Honey several times at Ho family functions. She was a true lady and made a malihini feel welcome with warmth and graciousness. I know how her family will miss her. A true light has gone out — but a new star shines over her beloved Islands.
Rest well, Honey, you deserve it.
Meredith Tole
Golden Valley, Ariz.
Hawai'i should tax cruise ship tourists
The Hawai'i Tourism Authority, Hawai'i Visitors and Convention Bureau and our state government courted the cruise ships to come to Hawai'i. They are spending a lot of our tax dollars, and the cruise ships are asking our state government to dish out $50 million to improve our harbors and berths, for starts.
So, why are we supporting an industry that registers its ships in foreign countries, escapes American minimum-wage requirements (hires Third World contract workers) and other labor laws, and avoids the corporate income tax and environmental laws of our country?
They are a billion-dollar industry, owned by American companies and carrying American citizens.
We need legislation to pass a head tax when the passengers set foot on our Islands — $20 for each passenger. The independent traveler pays room tax, car rental, and it goes on and on.
Tax the cruise ship passengers for coming ashore on our Islands. That will help our economy even more.
Julie Lopez
Kualapu'u, Moloka'i
Hanauma drownings must be addressed
It was absolutely horrific to read that over half of O'ahu's drownings last year were at Hanauma Bay.
With our hundreds of miles of coastline, to have such a concentration of death is unspeakable. What's worse is to wait until the year is over, tally the score and then say we have a problem. Is anyone paying attention?
Tourists come to Hawai'i for fun and leisure. We cannot expect visitors from Nebraska, Missouri or Kansas, who have lived perhaps all their lives hundreds or thousands of miles from an ocean, to know how to react to our Pacific Ocean — let alone know how to scuba-dive. We had better get our collective tourism act together before it is too late. Twelve families lost loved ones to Hanauma.
The survivors will never speak of Hawai'i as before. We need to be proactive in making our visitors' stay pleasurable rather than tragic.
Bruce MacPherson
Kailua
Lingle does 'get it' about Native Hawaiians
For the record, this first-time-woman governor of this Aloha State really "gets it."
She appears to be the "real deal" when commenting, at a recent Native Hawaiian round-table meeting, that the Hawaiian issue "is not a racial issue. This is a historical issue based on a relationship between an independent government and the United States of America and what has happened since and the steps that we need to take to make things right."
She is right on the money. Now, why did every administration before hers avoid this historical fact? Patrick Hanifin, Ken Conklin and others of their ilk continue to mislabel this as a racial issue.
Here is my take: First, they never believed it was worthy of their attention, so they politically subdued the issue. Second, they plainly wanted to steal the benefits from Hawaiians based on racial, social and economic unworthiness.
Hawaiians, never forget that this is your place and aloha can and only does emanate from you and is then ushered into the hearts and minds of all those who are receptive. As we know, not everybody understands, or accepts, aloha.
So all Native Hawaiians and Hawaiians at heart, take note: This governor has a penchant for repeating these words: "We need to make things right." I've never heard this from the previous administrations.
It may be too early to witness results, but frankly the signs indicate that help is finally on the way.
Hank McKeague
Park accessibility for disabled wonderful
In response to your Jan. 12 article, "Parks to upgrade access for disabled," we congratulate the Department of Land and Natural Resources for completing its plan to make Hawai'i's outdoor facilities more accessible for everyone.
The open environment of parks and beaches typically is not thought of as "inaccessible," but access is only fully realized when people with disabilities can also enter and fully enjoy our incredible natural resources as the rest of us do. By removing barriers, we are further establishing Hawai'i as one of the most accessible states in the nation, which benefits residents and visitors alike.
As the article correctly reports, an estimated 144,000 to 240,000 people in Hawai'i will benefit from these improvements. And while nearly 15 percent of men, women and children in Hawai'i are permanently disabled, virtually everyone experiences disability at some point in their lives. Chronic diseases such as diabetes or arthritis, car or diving accidents, work-related injuries, or just the natural process of aging can all result in temporary or permanent disability.
We encourage the DLNR to approve the plan and expedite its implementation. We congratulate Big Island advocate John Hartman for calling attention to this important issue.
Gary L. Smith
President, Hawaii Disability Rights Center
Capital punishment wouldn't be expensive
Regarding the Jan. 8 letter from Phil Robertson, who "did not think the taxpayers want to pay $14 million for executions like we did with Timothy McVeigh, who was worthless":
His letter was in answer to my Jan. 2 letter, where I said, "I pray that this new Legislature has stamina enough to reinstate capital punishment."
Mr. Robertson, you are correct. But you see, here in Hawai'i, we could have what is called a firing squad. Bullets are less than 8 cents each.
Olga Waterhouse
Kailua
Justice experience frightening
I wanted my family experience with the "justice" system in Hawai'i to be put in the past, but after reading Mike Coleman's very articulate commentary on Jan. 5 and the responses to that letter, I need to add my voice of experience to the issue. I pray that the responding letter writers or members of their families never have to be caught up in this court and penal system. I never thought I would.
I raised a child in my home for 15 years, from the time he was 5 years old. We were not allowed to adopt him. He is currently 29 years old. When he was 24, while living on his own and unemployed, he tampered with the electric meter to reduce the bill on his one-bedroom apartment.
He had never done this before, but that is no excuse. It was wrong. He was confronted by HECO employees who exercised police power to question and accuse him. He was immediately arrested and charged with second-degree theft. We posted bail and he was released.
HECO charged him $636.55 for two month's usage on a small apartment with no washer, no dryer and no dishwasher. As soon as he received the bill, and without disputing this unusually high, arbitrary charge, he paid the full amount. Regardless, the courts, based on HECO's charges, sought to pursue this as a felony (based on the dollar amount), and it was sent immediately to a grand jury.
When he was 27 years old, three years after the incident, his trial came up. Within those three years, he had gone to school, had a full-time job and was settled into a good relationship with his girlfriend. In spite of the positive information in the pretrial summary, the judge sentenced him to five years, with a two-month minimum as a felon.
He was immediately taken from the court to Halawa Prison. He slept on the floor in an overcrowded cell. He was incarcerated in a prison with serious felons: murderers, rapists, wife-beaters and sex offenders. This was a young man who never had any violent tendencies.
We expected that he would be released at the end of the two months. But no; what the judge says is only a suggestion. The Paroling Authority is judge and jury. I was told it could take up to a year before the parole board heard his case and made its decision. It had the power to impose the entire five-year sentence.
He served five months in Halawa before the board heard his case. He is currently on parole, employed at his old job and making every effort to return to school and do well, but the cloud of "convicted felon" follows him and will unfairly limit his choices for the rest of his life.
He could at any time, for any minor infraction such as a traffic ticket, be in violation of his parole and be returned to prison. He has a strong hanai family support system. What about the released young men who do not have that support and value system? As Coleman wrote, it becomes a repeated cycle.
Society's purpose of incarceration is rehabilitation and protection of the public from harm. There have to be better alternatives that do not do permanent harm to people so young and then expect them to adjust back into a productive life. Punishment in our justice system should fit the crime. This young man's crime was tampering with an electric meter.
M.C. Hoggatt
